1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to construction toys and, more particularly, the invention relates to an improved panel material and design for rod and connector construction toys.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Rod and connector style construction toys are well known in association with their respective trademarks, for example Tinkertoy™ manufactured by Playskool Inc., a division of Hasbro, Inc., FiddleStix™ manufactured by Toy N Things, and Zome™, manufactured by Zome Tool, Inc. These toys employ various linking means that permit connectors to join to rods to build composite, three-dimensional skeletal structures.
The prior art construction toys include a plurality of connector elements to be arranged with a plurality of rod elements to form coherent, skeletal structures. Typically, cylindrical rods are provided in graduated lengths allowing rectangular and triangular structures to be assembled in graduated sizes. The connectors are provided in a variety of configurations, having anywhere from one to eight sockets on a single connector part. Connectors can also be designed to be associated as multi-part assemblies with sockets radiating in more than one plane. When assembled, the rods are firmly gripped within the socket, which serve to position the rod element in alignment with the socket axis.
In the past, Playskool, a division of Hasbro, Inc., developed and marketed foam add-ons, called Foam Works™, with a TinkerToy™ construction set. However, these add-ons were not panels designed to fill skeletal structures. Toy N Things developed and marketed licensed add-on elements in a special Spiderman Fiddlestix™ construction set, but they also did not contain panels. The Gabriel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,975 had panel elements but these elements were not manufactured of foam and were either too costly to manufacture or resulted in heavily weighted structures unsuitable for children's play.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide panels that can be molded into a wide variety of possible shapes including, but not limited to rectangles, triangles, trapezoids, and octagons.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide panels that can be molded into three-dimensional objects.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide such panels as to allow lateral insertion and removal without distorting the skeletal structure of said construction sets.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide panels that are lightweight and safe for children to play with.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide such panels as to allow auxiliary elements to be attached thereto.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide such panels to flex to fit irregular planes.
It is still a further objective of the present invention to provide panels that are economical to manufacture.
For a more complete understanding of the above objectives and other features and advantages of the invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description of preferred embodiments and to the accompanying drawings.